1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an emergency ejection structure for an optical disk drive, and in particular to an emergency ejection structure for ensuring safety of the optical disk drive and users.
2. Description of the Prior Art
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a conventional external optical disk drive 1a. The conventional external optical disk drive 1a has a lid 10a. When opening the lid 10a, disks can be placed on or removed from the optical disk drive. The optical disk drive 1a sometimes fails to function properly or the host computer crashes. In order to open the lid 10a and remove the disk from the optical disk drive 1a, the optical disk drive 1a has installed an emergency ejection structure.
Referring to FIG. 2, the conventional emergency ejection structure includes a locking element 11a for locking the lid 10a of the disk drive 1a and keeping the lid 10a closed. The optical disk drive 1a has an emergency ejection hole 12a, and the lid 10a has an opening 15a. The locking element 11a has a locking hook 14a, and when the lid 10a is closed, the locking hook 14a is fitted to the opening 15a. The locking element 11a has an ejection lever 13a corresponding to the emergency ejection hole 12a. To perform ejection manually, the user can insert a suitable device into the emergency ejection hole 12a to push the ejection lever 13a downwardly in order to disengage the locking hook 14a from the opening 15a, as shown in FIG. 3.
However, when the disk drive 1a is in use, the lid 10a can be opened if the emergency ejection structure is inadvertently actuated. The disk may be ejected because the spindle motor (not shown) of optical disk drive 1a spins at a high speed. It may do damage to the disk and impair the user.
Consequently, the present invention provides an emergency ejection structure for an external optical disk drive. The emergency ejection structure ensures personnel safety and prevents disk or drive from being damaged due to inadvertent emergency ejection of optical disk.
It is an object of the invention to provide an emergency ejection structure for an optical disk drive. The optical disk drive has a lid and an emergency ejection hole. The lid has an opening. The emergency ejection structure comprises a locking element having a locking hook and an ejection lever, a safety element movably disposed under the emergency ejection hole, and an electromagnetic unit for generating magnetic field in the optical disk drive. The locking hook is fitted to the opening of the lid and keeps the lid closed. With magnetic force, the electromagnetic unit attracts the safety element.
On the one hand, the locking hook cannot disengage from the opening when the optical disk drive is connected to electric power that enables the electromagnetic unit to attract and hold the safety element.
On the other hand, the locking hook can disengage from the opening when the optical disk drive is disconnected to electric power, enabling the electromagnetic unit to release the safety element.
A detailed description will be given by the following embodiments with reference to the accompanying drawings.